Lisa Pine, ed.. Life and Times in Nazi . New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. 328 pp. $35.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-4742-1792-7.

Reviewed by Nathan Stoltzfus

Published on H-German (October, 2018)

Commissioned by David Harrisville (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Lisa Pine, one of the most productive histori‐ tories. Pine’s introduction rightly emphasizes the ans of everyday life in , has pub‐ pressures of social conformity and the terror of lished another marker in the historiography of or‐ nonconformity when considering whether most dinary Germans. Detractors have charged this al‐ Germans freely chose Nazism or were compelled ternative approach to “big man” and structuralist by terror to accept it. Many must have found interpretations with undue celebration of “the themselves somewhere in between, given the fa‐ man on the street.” This collection of ten essays, miliar urge to make life easier and more reward‐ rich with research and observations, helps ing along with the simple lack of experience with demonstrate that history from below does not resistance or even nonconformity. Resistance is have to ignore other approaches. Especially when also tremendously difcult given our propensity it relates the everyday to political decision-mak‐ to rationalize in ways that comfort and align self- ing, it adds dimensions and not just texture. Thus, interest with the mainstream, as Victor Klemper‐ it is especially well suited to the urgent task, in er’s diary points out. By the late 1930s almost all what might be a new populist era, of confronting Germans could fnd something to support about ordinary persons with the question of how they the Nazi dictatorship so that, as Pine writes, dis‐ contribute to the development and sustenance of sent, complicity, and outright support often coex‐ autocracy, fascist or otherwise. isted. Not surprisingly, considering the general Life and Times in Nazi Germany asks how or‐ human condition, Germans “were not equal to the dinary persons perceived and acted during such situation,” as Sebastian Hafner observed. Draw‐ an extraordinary time as the Nazi period, raising ing on familiar habits, they tried “to ignore the sit‐ questions about whether they considered their uation and not allow it to disturb our fun ... to time to be extraordinary, and if so, when and why. think about unpleasant things as little as possi‐ While Hitler and his allies did not succeed in con‐ ble.”[1] structing a Volksgemeinschaft according to their The book consists of three parts: “Food and ideal, the degree to which they did gain and main‐ Health,” “Lifestyle,” and “Religion.” Nancy Reagin, tain support from the population as long as they who has written on women’s political organiza‐ were providing incentives for the majority--and at tions before 1933, ofers real insights into the ev‐ a horrendous price to others--casts a probing light eryday life of “ordinary” Germans, in contrast to a on the learned habits of our species and its trajec‐ few chapters that focus more on elites. She ex‐ H-Net Reviews plores the dictatorship’s eforts to convince Ger‐ brute force. Characteristically, as well, it was the mans to embrace Nazism, using new food-pro‐ Führer who, in contrast to the cumulative radical‐ cessing and -storage technologies along with en‐ ization that he permitted in the persecution of the ticement, lack of choice, and exhortation, reach‐ , intervened to reverse coercive measures ing the conclusion that Nazi eforts to reshape taken by regional domestic ofcials that alienated consumption and dietary habits “were largely the Volk. Hitler, to protect his image, rescinded a successful” (p. 40). Although it considered women Total War measure by the minister for the econo‐ incapable of conducting politics, the dictatorship my to ban hair permanents in 1943. He was re‐ encouraged women to feel empowered by touting sponding to complaints from women including their eforts as critical to Germany’s mission in Eva Braun, although as the war gobbled up chem‐ the big, history-making world of men, war, and icals, perms became increasingly rare and expen‐ conquest (“cooking spoons” became “weapons” sive. Guenter demonstrates that “clothes provided during the war). Reagin identifes the key role a tangible sign of inclusion in and exclusion from that looting from foreign territories played in the Volksgemeinschaft” (p. 101), as outsiders were propping up the German food economy and the forbidden to wear the dirndl (traditional Volk cos‐ paltry rations for Jewish Germans, although she tume) or the uniforms of Nazifed women’s orga‐ did not fnd time or space to deal with sources on nizations, while others were marked as outsiders the privations sufered by foreign forced laborers. on their clothing. Guenter concludes that fashion Looking back from the 1950s, most Germans re‐ and fashion magazines served as a smokescreen membered the Nazi prewar years as a “good” pe‐ that, like Hitler’s prolonged refusal to conscript riod, because they themselves had jobs and their women, attempted to create the impression that own tables were sufciently set. Pointing out that war under Nazism would not demand harsh sac‐ alcoholics were sterilized while drug addicts were rifces. rehabilitated, Jonathan Lewy’s contribution, “Vice Kirstin Semmens’s chapter on tourism is an and the Third Reich,” argues that the Nazi ap‐ excellent example of how ordinary persons can proach to addiction (with the exception of alco‐ align their own interests with those of tyranny, holism) was remarkably liberal, treating it as a just as they have learned to align them with pow‐ disease (although ending addiction was promoted er structures during a democracy, without any as a measure to stem antisocial behavior). He thought of resistance. Semmens emphasizes that mentions but does not develop the special con‐ the Nazis had a big impact on the tourism indus‐ cern the regime had in cautioning women not to try, concluding that “everyday tourism” generally smoke. Geofrey Cocks’s study of illness in Nazi increased support for Hitler or at least minimized Germany does consider the gendered nature of overt resistance, even as it brutalized Jewish pro‐ Nazi policies, which included a focus on promot‐ fessionals, some of them colleagues or associates. ing women’s health to increase the population. (alignment or coordination) of The Volksgemeinschaft was a Nazi ideal and the the travel industry, Semmens fnds, was often due leadership made decisions in light of its goal of to voluntary changes on the local level rather persuading Germans to join in constructing it. than orders from above, as many tourist profes‐ Irene Guenther opens the book’s second sec‐ sionals traded their autonomy for career ad‐ tion with a chapter on the fraught Nazi relation‐ vances. To the extent that tourist professionals ship to women’s fashion. She shows not only the were a coherent group (and this could be investi‐ political signifcance of women for Nazism, but gated further), Semmens shows them accepting also the limitations the regime recognized on its capacity to get its way within the Reich by sheer

2 H-Net Reviews the convenient Nazi claim that tourism united the functioned as a mechanism for integrating the Germans and promoted patriotism. people into the national community through par‐ David Imhoof’s essay, “Sports, Politics and ticipation. Art, like fashion, was a representation Free Time,” begins with the intriguing claim that of Nazi ideology: both presented modern styles as “the history of sport illustrates that Nazi Gleich‐ non-German, infuenced by Jews. schaltung (coordination) of free-time activities This book’s fnal section on religion concerns was a two-way street, a process by which average Protestants, Catholics, and Christmas. To avoid a Germans helped to create the Third Reich culture repetition of the home front unrest that Hitler as much as they had it imposed on them” (p. 161). blamed for Germany’s loss of , the While the expulsion of Jews from the industry dictatorship wanted to fght war without imping‐ and erasure of Jewish sites on tourist maps oc‐ ing on everyday norms and consumption, al‐ curred with brutal rapidity, Gleichschaltung was a though this became increasingly difcult with long process, as traced in Imhoof’s case study of each year of war. Conversely, churches’ practice Göttingen, having begun on the initiative of local of their religious customs generally became easier elites even before Hitler came to power and con‐ during the war, following Hitler’s resolve, deliv‐ tinuing into the mid-1930s. While masking “Göt‐ ered as an order during the frst days of the war, tingen interests,” townspeople playing, watching, that all unnecessary provocations of the churches or writing about sports “helped turn Göttingen must cease. into a Nazi town,” Imhof argues (p. 179). Nazi Opening the book’s fnal section, on religion, policing and taxation of organizations made use Christopher Probst rightly contrasts Protestant ob‐ of preexisting notions of community associated jections to Nazi infringement of traditional reli‐ with sports in ways that attracted Germans to the gious practices with its occasional objections to state and even prepared them for war. the persecution of the Jews. He points out that the Joan Clinefelter’s chapter on art and the did not support Hitler’s dream Volksgemeinschaft argues boldly that “culture of establishing a Reich Church with a Reich bish‐ generally and the visual arts specifcally formed op above all other German Protestant bishops, an‐ the core of the Volksgemeinschaft” (p. 189). Before swering to the Führer. Because Party ofcials as well as during the war, the arts “provided vis‐ could neither turn opinion against these bishops ual proof of the very essence of German identity nor agree on how to control them, they referred and the new society that was being created” (p. the decision to Hitler, who appeased the bishops 204). As the site of engagement between the Ger‐ and their churches in order to maintain the for‐ man people and Nazi conceptions of art, art exhi‐ ward momentum of his movement. The bishops bitions are of particular interest for Clinefelter, prevailed because of the public opinion they mo‐ who contends that the struggle between Josef bilized. Probst’s “ from the Margins” Goebbels and Alfred Rosenberg over German presents a view not so much from social margins modernists largely played out not between the as from the margins of the Protestant ideological two Nazi bigwigs but at the local level, through spectrum, promulgated by elites. The focus on the decisions about how to stage individual art shows. Protestant relationship to the advance of the vio‐ Clinefelter argues that the objective of eforts to lent persecution of the Jews identifes the difer‐ create a uniquely German style of art was to unite ence between and anti-Judaism, but the German people and serve their needs in a way more might be made of the range and types of an‐ that erased class diferences, making the case that tisemitism and the church’s relationship to Nazi the way visual art was presented and consumed biological or “racial” antisemitism. Probst’s con‐

3 H-Net Reviews sideration of Theodor Pauls and Hermann Maas Catholics were patriotic, loyal Germans support‐ does illustrate the extremes of Protestant thinking ing Hitler and few questioned his racial policies? about the Jews, showing how Pauls twisted Martin This book’s study of the ways and extent to Luther’s writings by applying racial concepts of which the regime succeeded in permeating Ger‐ antisemitism while Maas spoke out against Nazi man cultural and social life ends with Joe Perry’s antisemitism and helped Jews to emigrate. One “Christmas as Nazi Holiday.” The Nazis wished to wonders whether these elites represented the take Christianity out of Christmas while aligning views of the Protestant masses. the Volk’s perception of National Socialism with Kevin Spicer’s treatment of “Catholic Life un‐ the Christmas mood. The dictatorship tried to der Hitler” is also more concerned with clergy “colonize” Christmas, in the description of Perry, than parishioners. Focusing on the ways in which like other institutions and holidays that com‐ the clergy supported or failed to hinder the perse‐ manded strong popular allegiance or a positive cution of Jews, the chapter identifes church oppo‐ mood. Perry does a fne job of outlining the social sition, before and during the war, as the self-serv‐ and historical context of the development of the ing “preservation of their own belief system” (p. Christmas mood in Germany before the dictator‐ 253). Spicer evaluates resistance in terms of moral ship attempted to repurpose it as a celebration of behavior while insights about the mechanisms the Volksgemeinschaft. Völkish and pre-Christian that rendered some forms of opposition more ef‐ solstice celebrations interpreted as refecting the fective than others are missing. Insights into the values of Nazism were introduced probably with possibilities, extent, and limits of Catholic opposi‐ some success, although it is difcult indeed to ac‐ tion are lost in sweeping statements such as that cess emotions as people experienced them. Bishop Sproll “had to fee his home ... after Overall, Life and Times in Nazi Germany is church-state tensions in his region threatened to strong in exposing mechanisms that drove the become deadly” or “the euthanasia programme process of Gleichschaltung and in illustrating the actually continued uninterrupted” (p. 253) follow‐ development of the Volksgemeinschaft, coerced ing Galen’s protest. Bishop von Galen’s protest and voluntary. It demonstrates the continuing vi‐ against euthanasia “at most ... drove Catholics to tality of everyday life history and would be partic‐ mistrust state authorities even more.... The ularly useful for college courses not only in that Gestapo also acted swiftly and mercilessly against feld but also twentieth-century German or Euro‐ any form of resistance” (p. 253). The dictatorship’s pean history, not to mention courses in Nazi Ger‐ response to Galen’s protest hardly supports this many. claim about the Gestapo’s reach, and on the other Note hand the church’s failure to resist to the extent possible is not identifed. (The bishops ignored [1]. Sebastian Hafner, Defying Hitler (New Bishop Galen’s suggestions to bring the public into York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), 155. opposition by protesting from the pulpit rather than in private; each locale that struggled against the removal of crucifxes from Catholic schools struggled alone rather than as part of a common Catholic front; Johannes Sproll stood alone in re‐ fusing to allow sterilizations in the hospital of his diocese, etc.) How much will for resistance was there considering Spicer’s conclusion that most

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Citation: Nathan Stoltzfus. Review of Pine, Lisa, ed. Life and Times in Nazi Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2018.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=50613

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